Anna Meredith MBE is a composer, producer and performer of both acoustic and electronic music.  Her sound is frequently described as ‘uncategorisable’ and ‘genre-defying’ and straddles the different worlds of contemporary classical, art pop, electronica, ambient installations and experimental rock - or as the Guardian said: "majestic bangers"...

 

Her music has been performed everywhere from the BBC Last Night of the Proms to flashmob body-percussion performances in the M6 Services, PRADA, Chloe & Fendi fashion campaigns, Apple adverts, films, installations and documentaries, pop festivals, clubs and classical concert halls worldwide and broadcast on Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6.

 

Her debut album, Varmints was released in March 2016 on Moshi Moshi/PIAS to huge critical acclaim with 4 and 5 star reviews from press and media around the world including Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Music. Varmints was Loud & Quiet's Album of the Year 2016 & won the 2016 Scottish Album of the Year (SAY Award). 

 

She is published by a new partnership between Warp Publishing & Faber Music Publishing, and is one of the first Somerset House Studios Residents. Much to Anna's surprise she was voted Number One in The List's Hot100 (of Cultural Contributors to 2016).  

 

Anna is also a regular presenter for BBC Radio3 and 6Music and a radio and TV guest, judge and panel member on numerous shows including as Goldie's mentor for the TV show Classic Goldie.

 

She has been Composer in Residence with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, RPS/PRS Composer in the House with Sinfonia ViVA, the classical music representative for the 2009 South Bank Show Breakthrough Award and winner of the 2010 Paul Hamlyn Award for Composers.

 

Her recent body percussion piece Connect It was written for the BBC’s award winning 'Ten Pieces' scheme which involved half of all UK Primary school children working on Connect It as well as Anna leading broadcasts, workshops and performances including at Radio 2’s Proms in the Park to 40,000 people.

 

Anna's two EPs - Black Prince Fury and Jet Black Raider were released on Moshi Moshi Records to critical acclaim including Drowned in Sound's Single of the Year.

 

She collaborates closely with her band, which has a line-up of Anna on clarinet and electronics, plus cello (Maddie Cutter), electric guitar (Jack Ross), tuba (Tom Kelly) and drums (Sam Wilson).

 

After a sell-out Varmints album shows (awarded 5 stars by the Guardian) at London’s ICA, Scala and Oval Space the band have spent 216-2017 touring and performing at numerous UK and EU headline shows and festivals including Glastonbury, Field Day, Latitude, Rewire, End of the Road, & Transmusicales.

 

In 2017 the band went on their first US tour including performances at SXSW, which the New York Times reviewed as "sheer exhilaration"  while NPR described the show as "a stormy, ecstatic, endlessly danceable thrill to behold...the best artist I've seen at SXSW and one of the most creative bands I've seen in years. Music for the head, the heart, the ass and the feet". They returned to tour the US in 2018 including doing NPR's Tiny Desk which Bob Boilen described as "the most exhilarating [Tiny Desk] I've experienced".

 

They've recently been working on a Varmints + Orchestra show with Southbank Sinfonia. The show sold out the newly refurbished Queen Elizabeth Hall and received five stars from ArtsDesk. They're taking the show to Edinburgh in August 2018 as part of Edinburgh International Festival. 

 

Anna's other recent projects have included installations for Sleep-Pods in Singapore and Park Benches in Hong Kong, the world's first Concerto for Beatboxer and Orchestra & collaborations with Laura Marling and The Stranglers for the first 6Music Prom. Projects in 2016 & 2017 included working with her sister, illustrator Eleanor Meredith, on a new piece Anno for the Scottish Ensemble, pieces for Big Band, arrangements of David Bowie for the BBC tribute concert and for Sigur Ros & the LA Phil in Disney Hall, an installation for the lifts inbetween M&S and Selfridges for Manchester International Festival, remixes, and an installation for custom whirly tubes and UV lights for the Barbican Centre.

 

Anna completed her first film soundtrack for Bo Burnham's film Eighth Grade (produced by A24) which premiered at Sundance and was released in 2018.

 

July 2018 saw the premiere of Five Telegrams, a new visuals & choral/orchestral piece with 59Productions, co-commissioned by the BBC Proms, Edinburgh International Festival and 14-18 Now, and premiered at the First Night of the Proms and then at the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival.

 

In June 2019 she was awarded an MBE for her services to music, in The Queen's Birthday Honours List.

 

Her second album, FIBS, was released on Moshi Moshi in October 2019. 

annameredith.com